I ordered a set of the cheap ebay headers and to make a long story short the ones they sent me didn't fit for shyt and I had to pry the front header tube of the J pipe over an inch to get it to line up. I emailed the place and they said oh whoops it looks like you have the base model headers not for S type and we don't stock S type headers. Thru my research it seems they are wrong and they're all the same?

I also noticed some of the ebay ads (including this one even tho its not what they sent) show headers where the 3 primary tubes meet all at the collector flange, and the J pipe has to flex sections. Then the other ones (like I have) have the 3 header pipes meeting in a collector and then the flange, and the J pipe has only 1 Flex joint.

I don't want to buy the wrong ones again, I had a hell of a time dealing with these already.

Anyone have any input?

THanks!

 

the headers are the same. No difference for type S or not. Look at DC headers site. They fit all CLs 2001-2003.

The headers with one flex pipe after the merge are better, again like the DC.
DC Sports: 3 into 1 Headers HHC5528 for Acura

 

AFAIK the only different header is for the CL-S Manual..
Both base and S are the same headers.

 

I have had good sucsess with XS Power headers. I've put about 50K miles on them with no issues. They are an exact copy of the Comptech header (I have a Comptech header also).

Accord_V6_Header, ACURA / ACCORD V6 HEADER, Acura Honda Non Turbo Headers, XS Power Inc.

 

Looks like you just got unlucky. Maybe they send you two rear collectors? It's happened before.

As for the flex joint, the ONE joint is better. The design that has 2 flex joints is garbage. They have two flex joints because they couldn't get the dimensions to fit right.

 

HEY!
I had this issue that made me feel pretty dumb when I was putting on my DC Headers.

Make sure that you have the front ones on the front.
lol
Sounds silly but I put the front ones on the rear and vice versa, tightened a few bolts to test fit and then went to put on my J-Pipe and it wouldn't fit!

Lo and behold it was the headers that were backward.
One of the dumbest things I experienced by far.

 

How do the DC Sports headers hold up long term?

 

^ Mine developed a Ceramic Flake.. I don´t think its a widespread problem probably just had a bad batch.